Tesla’s return to the elite club of trillion-dollar market cap stocks is all the evidence Elon Musk needs to convince him the worst of the blowback over his political activism is over.
Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk dismissed concerns over weak demand as a non-issue that journalists like Bloomberg interviewer Mishal Husain may fixate on but one that bullish investors were correct to ignore.
“We’ve lost some sales perhaps on the left, but we’ve gained them on the right. The sales numbers at this point are strong and we see no problem with demand,” the Tesla CEO said. “The stock wouldn’t be trading near all-time highs if things weren’t in good shape, they’re fine, don’t worry about it.”
Tesla stock is expected to open up Wednesday at around $345 a share, a significant rebound from recent lows around $214 but still substantially down from its December all-time high $488 share price.
Analysts have noted the stock’s valuation multiple of 120x consensus 2026 earnings is first and foremost an expression of confidence in its AI and robotics plans, rather than its shrinking car business. Market researcher DataTrek calls Tesla a “faith-based stock” as a result, since much of the premium priced in is based on immature products and services like its Optimus robot.
Going into this year, the Tesla CEO raised the bar on expectations on car sales considerably.
Musk nonetheless repeated his claims in a separate interview with CNBC’s Faber on Tuesday: “We’ve seen a major rebound in demand at this point.”
Barring the launch of any surprise new models the public has yet seen, evidence suggests Musk could be mistaken.
In Europe, the picture is even more grim. Key markets like Germany saw EV demand jump by more than half in April as more customers make the switch to zero-emission driving. Yet volumes of Teslas in the country plunged 46% over the previous year.
If one were to believe Musk, however, one might be convinced the exact opposite would be true.
“That’s true of all manufacturers. There’s no exceptions. The European car market is quite weak,” he told Bloomberg’s Husain.
Troy Teslike, a Patreon account whose predictions are often more accurate than most Wall Street analysts, on Wednesday issued his latest forecast for the brand after tracking Tesla’s real-time vehicle production data.
He believes the company is on track to sell anywhere between 350,000 to 395,000 vehicles in Q2, another sharp decline from the 444,000 delivered last year.
